Instagram says advertising base tops one million businesses

Reuters Staff

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Instagram is expected to announce on Wednesday that it has reached more than 1 million monthly active advertisers, as the Facebook Inc-owned photo-sharing app tries to become a center of online commerce.

The number of advertisers has grown five-fold from 200,000 a year ago, Instagram's vice president for business, James Quarles, said in a phone interview this week. He called the 1 million number a "milestone."

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, and initially, the app had limited advertising with only a handful of well-known brands.

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Last year, Instagram began pushing businesses that had created standard profiles to adopt business-specific profiles, and 8 million businesses have done so, Quarles said. Instagram is able to use Facebook's ad technology to target specific audiences.